


Your Mess Is Mine

by welseykels



Series: Stardew Valley: Grace Williams [1]
Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, We'll eventually get to that explicit rating
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 04:37:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9368195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/welseykels/pseuds/welseykels
Summary: Grace was having a tough time getting the citizens of Pelican Town to like her ever since she'd taken over her Grandfather's farm in Stardew Valley, none more so than Shane.





	

**Author's Note:**

> [Check out my writing masterpage on tumblr!](https://welseykels.tumblr.com/writing)

Grace looked in the mirror, trying not to let her hands shake as she applied a pink gloss to her lips, the final thing she had to go before heading out.  She was beyond nervous, having not even been in Pelican Town for a even full season before the Mayor was urging her to start joining in on the town’s festivals.  She was a member of Pelican Town now, and that was what he expected of his citizens apparently. Grace was not used to having much expected of her in her personal life, only with whatever job she had, she’d never been scolded into going to a festival before.  This was new.

She had already missed out on the Egg Festival, giving excuses that she was busy clearing out land for a silo, which hadn’t helped the townspeople warm up to her.  She’d caught some of the looks, heard some of the murmured ‘ _ city girl’s too good for the festivals _ ’ around town. She’d caught a group talking about her at Pierre’s one day, not knowing she was one aisle over.  Apparently her absence had been more than noted.  _ Fantastic _ . But well, she'd been scared. Certainly, she'd cleared the land, that had been true, but her hands had shaken the entire time. She hadn’t known anyone, hadn't taken the time to in those first few days before the festival, she'd been so busy getting her farm started that she’d hardly had time to think about the world beyond the edge of her property. Getting to know new people, a whole town of them, was more daunting than it had seemed when she’d finally decided to pack up her things and move to the country.

She was nervous, to say the very least.  She barely knew anyone yet, felt like an intruder into their lives.  She would have felt out of place there, standing alone in the crowd, everyone having known the others for more than likely the whole of their lives while the younger of the town searched through the town square searching for painted eggs.

She’d only just started to strike up a tentative friendship with Emily, the woman being one of the few who hadn’t asked where she’d been during the festival.  Emily had even offered her a free drink at the saloon a few days after, after Grace had had to endure a particularly unpleasant conversation about her community attendance with the Mayor one night after he’d entered with the rancher Marnie.  She’d been grateful, and she may have a little much to drink, and may have gotten a bit more chatty with the bartender than she usually would have sober.

But it looked like she might be making steps towards her first friend here.

Pulling all her courage together that she could, she stood from the old vanity, swallowing down her nerves at her first community event.

_ She could do this.  _  She just hoped she could blend in with the crowd and they wouldn’t make a big fuss that she was the only one who’d never been to a Flower festival before.

She said goodbye to Gus, the cat sleeping at the foot of her bed, before sighing loudly and locking the door behind herself. She made a mental note never to tell the saloon owner that she'd accidentally named her plump orange tabby cat after him. 

She smoothed her fingers down the skirt of her dress, nerves again getting the better of her as she approached the edge of the field the town was using for the festival, taking a shortcut she used when she wanted to talk to Marnie about what she’d need to set up her farm for livestock.  She hoped her palms weren’t sweaty enough that she left little imprints on the fabric and she hurriedly made her way to the back of the crowd.  

Which is when, of course, she tripped over a root of one of the trees surrounding the clearing.  Thankfully - or cruelly - Marnie’s nephew Shane was close enough that she was able to brace herself from completely falling flat on her face by taking hold of his arm.  She earned a scowl and a grumbled ‘ _ watch it’ _ in her direction, but at least she hadn't fallen flat on her face and gotten grass stains all over her dress. 

Shane obviously still didn’t like her very much, even after she’d bought him a beer and a slice of pizza for his birthday the weekend before.  She thought it would have been a nice gesture, trying to get to know each of the locals, to make up for her apparent mistakes, and a little part of her had thought he was cute when she’d first seen him, stocking the shelves at Joja Mart when she’d went in once for a type of seed Pierre had been sold out of.  And then Shane had opened his mouth and she’d wondered why she’d thought those sturdy shoulders and dark hair were cute in the first place.

She didn’t think she’d been told in so many words to fuck off in a grocery store before. All she'd done is ask what aisle the gardening supplies where in. 

_ The seeds had been overpriced, too. _

She had run into him a handful of times at Marnie’s since then, and she thought she’d been making at least some progress. He’d actually grumbled at least in response when she said hello now.  That was something, right?

At least Marnie and Jas seemed to like her well enough.  Marnie probably because Grace was planning on making paying big deposit on chickens soon.  But Jas at least seemed excited when Grace would visit the shop.

Shane hadn’t seemed to want to spend his birthday with Marnie or Jas… or really anyone last weekend, sitting alone in a corner booth by the fireplace in the saloon.  He’d scowled when she’d brought the pizza and chilled mug over, offering a soft birthday congratulations.  Emily had told her a couple days before when she'd been complaining about the Joja Mart run-in after one too many beers that it was his birthday that weekend, and well, maybe if she made this small step first, maybe he’d be nicer to her when he saw her around town.  Maybe she’d get a ‘hello’ back one day.  Wishful thinking.

Shane had huffed something about another horrible year gone when she’d congratulated him on his birthday, but he’d taken the mug and plate all the same, muttering it shouldn’t go to waste anyways.  She’d asked if she could sit with him at the booth for a moment, maybe spend some time with him if he wanted, get to know him.

He’d said no.

Well, she guessed she could finally take a hint.  She couldn’t win over everyone in the town, as much as she thought of how nice that would be.  She hadn’t had many friends in the city, and she was worried those few would dwindle away in the coming months while she found less and less time to go back and visit when harvesting season came along.  She wanted a life here too in her new town, and well, wasn’t it easier if she was liked?  It was a fresh start to be whomever she wanted to be and that was becoming harder and harder it seemed to achieve.

She was tossed out of her thoughts when Penny and Maru came on either side of her, each taking one of her arms in their own, over excited to find out if she had plans to dance with anyone.  They chatted away, over-excited for what would come to pass over the next few hours, showing her their outfits for the festival.  Penny had already asked Sam to dance with her, and Maru was more than certain she’d have to drag her boss out into the center of the field, lest he never have any fun out on the town and away from his clinic.

She wondered if Emily had asked them to talk to her, she could see the blue-haired bartender across the crowd, busy talking with her sister.  She wondered if her potential new friend had someone to dance with herself. 

She was abruptly left alone when the music started, the pair of women excited to get to the opening dance with all the single members of the community.  Grace idly wondered if any of the dancing pairs in the history of the festival had actually begun a relationship after dancing together. 

_ Was there anyone left who she could dance with? _

Emily had told her that only unmarried members of the community were allowed to dance in the Flower Dance itself, but then everyone could join in on the fun after.

So Harvey and Sam were out for choices and dancing with Shane was definitely not happening.  That left Alex, Elliott, and Sebastian.

_ Or not. _

The Mayor announced that it was time, and before she’d even had a chance to pluck up her nerve and ask someone to dance with her, all her choices took the hands of their partners and made their way to the dancing area.

Shane was the only other one her age sitting at the fringes of the crowd, can of what she could only assume was beer in hand, a frown on his lips between sips. She would not ask him to dance, but she was half tempted to ask him if he had another can of beer, just to take the edge off of her nerves to stay the rest of the night.  He’d tell her no even if he did, there was no point in asking.

She wondered if next year would be the same as this.  _ Yoba, she hoped not.  _

“You’re not going to dance?”

Jas’ small hand tugged on the end of her skirt as she made to sit beside Grace, her eyes flicking between their two dresses.  She’d been told that it was town tradition for all the bachelorette’s to wear a white cocktail dress, and so she’d made a special trip to the city just to get one.   _ She was starting to think that that had been a terrible waste of a trip and money. _

“Your dress is so pretty! You have to dance!”

Grace fidgeted a bit, fingers replacing Jas’ where the small girl had touched along the hem of her dress. “I don’t have anyone to dance with.  You’re supposed to have a partner.”

“What about Uncle Shane?  He’s not dancing with anyone either!  He never does anymore.”

She tried and very much failed to suppress a snort at Jas’ suggestion.  

_ Shane want to dance with her? _ She didn’t need to endure the rejection she knew she’d get if she asked. And she wasn’t surprised that he didn’t dance, but wondered what Jas had meant by ‘anymore’.  Had he been something else before the sourpuss he was now?

When she didn’t say anything more, Jas tugged on her hand.  “Come dance with us!”  She’d expected Jas and Vincent to pull her towards the ring of dancers, but they went off in the opposite direction, towards the forest.

“Where are we going?”

The pair exchanged a glance and giggled for a few moments before Jas answered.  “Uncle Shane’s secret spot, you’ll see!”


End file.
